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Anyone have seafood recipes?

03-20-2005, 03:16 PM

hi stanley and all

now that i have my dome almost completed i am getting more interested
in cooking and i remember that stanley was mentioning seafood in one of
his posts sometime ago. i would love to hear some of your experiences
or some of your favorite and successful or not so successful recipes.
we love seafood and that just was initially not on my mind to put in my
bread oven.

also, i am still a bit puzzled on building the vent. is there any
advantage on a steel vent over a terra cotta piece. should i avoid any
90 degree corners from the base to the vent to the chimney-??

I have a range of pans I like, each of which gives a different effect:

Glazed terra cotta pans. I have a range of sizes and shapes for
roasting meat and fish, veggies, potatoes and slow cooking. I have a
covered one for beans and lentils, and use an oval for fish.

Stainless steel 3 ply. I have an All-Clad-ish round with a long steel
handle for rice, fire-in-the-oven appetizers, shrimp and anything
that likes it hot above and below. I also use it for hot oven
potatoes roasting. You can preheat this one for faster potatoes.

Cast iron grill pan (with raised grill). I use this for sausages,
whole fish, and grilling eggplant and peppers. It has a steel (not
wood) handle. You can pre-heat it before putting on the food and cook
whole fish without turning.

Steel one ply paella pan with handles on the sides. For Spanish
paella (don't move the rice after it sets!)

Aluminum one ply pan with handles on the sides. The bottom gets hot
very fast. I use this one to brown eggplant for eggplant parmesan,
but it seems to do about the same thing as the stainless 3 ply.

Regular round or rectangular steel baking pan for focaccio and
sciachiatta. They conduct heat better than terra cotta for bread.

I cracked a few white porcelain pans, so I stopped doing that.

Looking forward to hearing other idea.

I like Bob's idea of using the pan that holds the chicken upright.
I've heard (but not tried) you can put garlic and herbs in a little
water in the dish itself, which carries the flavors up into the
chicken with the steam.

James

Comment

For fish, try a couple of cedar shakes. Soak 2 in water for an hour or
so. Then lay them on top of each other so the tapered end of one is on
top of the thick end of the other (that way you end up with an even
thickness along the whole thing. The fish is laid on this, slid into
the oven and cooked surrounded by fire. When you're done you can let
the shingles finish drying out and use them to start your next fire. A
large bundle of 2nds (common not clear grade) was something like $15
from Home Depot. (I saw they're selling cedar planks now for cooking
on the grill for almost that much for a single plank...sheesh!)

Jim

Comment

on another note, this has been a bumper year for dungenous (however that's spelled) crab. we've had it out of the oven several times this year and my wife and i can honestly say that it is the best crab*we have ever eaten. here's what we do:

1. clean several crabs (throw away the body and keep the legs). you should end up with several leg segments per crab. (i'll post pictures tomorrow on my web site of what you should end up with and also more detailed instructions).

2. toss the legs with liberal amounts of olive oil and black pepper and some salt.

3. arrange the legs on a cookie sheet and put them into a hot oven for about 15 minutes. in this regard, i now have a theory about just the "doneness" of anything we put in the oven and that is: its not done until at least some part of it is burnt.*

4. eat them. i could be happy just sucking on the shells, they're that tastey. we use almond wood and i think that the wood imparts a great flavor.

Comment

For fish, try a couple of cedar shakes. Soak 2 in water for an hour or
so. Then lay them on top of each other so the tapered end of one is on
top of the thick end of the other (that way you end up with an even
thickness along the whole thing. The fish is laid on this, slid into
the oven and cooked surrounded by fire. When you're done you can let
the shingles finish drying out and use them to start your next fire. A
large bundle of 2nds (common not clear grade) was something like $15
from Home Depot. (I saw they're selling cedar planks now for cooking
on the grill for almost that much for a single plank...sheesh!)

Jim

I use cedar planks all the time and I have thought about using the real thing as Jim suggests but I'm worried that they have some type of fire retardant in them. Anyone know know if this is true?